Richard Turco-A trip to Bear Valley Springs

I am deeply honored to present a talk this coming Saturday at Bear Valley Springs, a wonderful retirement community where my UCLA Ph. D advisor, Professor Richard Turco, and his lovely wife, Linda Turco, now reside. Thank you Rich for inviting me! You are simply one of the dearest and kindest human beings I have ever met and worked with. The world needs more people like you to teach, inspire and lead the way.

Rich has an uncanny resemblance to Kirk Douglas. At my Ph. D ceremony in 1994 my father thought he was the legend himself. To me, however, Rich is a true steward of the Earth and a legend beyond reproach.

Fun facts about Rich (photo caption): Scientist Richard Turco and Carl Sagan were on the scientific team that devised the concept of nuclear winter. In the photo Turco is seen at the Nuclear Winter test fire: where a canyon outside Los Angeles was deliberately set on fire to study the potential climatic effects of a nuclear war. The nuclear winter theory predicts that smoke from fires burning after a nuclear war would block sunlight, causing a rapid drop in temperature that would trigger serious ecological disturbance. The test burn took place in December 1986 on 500 acres of brush in Lodi Canyon, Los Angeles. Dripping napalm from a helicopter ignited the fire. Ground-based temperature sensors were used to study soil erosion. Various airborne experiments included smoke sampling & high-altitude infrared imaging from a converted U-2 spy plane.

Advance Praise

A seeker of knowledge from a young age, she confronts the limits of the world she is given to transcend societal rules and limitations to find her true calling.— Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers